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Tell me, John; if todays serial killers with motor cars choose to transport body parts in their cars to a dumping site - how does that materially differ from the concept of taking the parts by horse and cart to a dumping site in the victorian days? It is not as if this killer had to drive fifteen hours to get to the West End by horse and cart, is it?

So what is it you are trying to say? That the victorians were uninclined to use their transport means in any criminal activity?

Comment

Have a look at the Mad Butcher, or the Cleveland Torso Killer as he is also known.

That is a very interesting case indeed, Rocky, and one that I had not been familiar with until now. So thanks for pointing me to it! However, even though the Mad Butcher did go from killing in some private place to killing outdoors, there are important differences between him and Torso man/the Ripper. The Mad Butcher cases are more clearly linked and where he killed outdoors doesn’t seem to have been as highly risky as the densely populated East End, where there was always someone closeby.

Considering how much the butcher changed up his mo I don't understand why sometimes dismembering woman and packaging them up and sometimes decapitating males, post mortem mutilation of genitals and leaving them outside in fields is acceptable modus operani variation but the ripper/torso variations are not.

It appears I haven’t expressed myself clear enough. The important MO variation between Torso man and the Ripper only has to do with the fact that Torso man did his work in some private place, where he had all the time to do as he pleased (at low risk), while the Ripper did his work out in the streets, where anybody, including the ever present beat PC’s could have walked into him at any given moment (thus, at very high risk) and where he couldn’t count on doing all that he wanted.

All the best,
Frank

"You can rob me, you can starve me and you can beat me and you can kill me. Just don't bore me."
Clint Eastwood as Gunny in "Heartbreak Ridge"

Comment

Zodiac was a relatively low risk serial killer throughout his killing career. That he shot and stabbed both women and men and went from couples to a cab driver has nothing to do with that.
Still, this is not comparable to the difference between Torso man and the Ripper. Bundy hadn’t killed for years and went back to attacking indoors, a method he was already familiar with.
Not true, as I explained above and in a earlier post.

This has nothing to with what I’ve been saying.

All the best,
Frank

Hi Frank

If you didn't notice I was responding to Rocky about SKs change in MO as well as responding to your query about SKs who change risk level.

Zodiac was a relatively low risk serial killer throughout his killing career.

Nope. he went from low risk to high risk. Killing couples in cars in secluded place at night where he could drive up shoot and drive away quickly-low risk.
Then to donning a crazy outfit and attacking a couple far away from his car stabbing them instead of shooting them in day time. Incredible high risk.

Bundy hadn’t killed for years and went back to attacking indoors, a method he was already familiar with.

are you kidding? he went from a highly planned out effective ruse to going berserk in a sorority house. about as high a risk as you can take.

you asked about serial killers going from low risk to high risk.

Just off the top of my head I gave you two clear cut and obvious examples.

so torsoripper doing the same is no bigee.

"Is all that we see or seem
but a dream within a dream?"
-Edgar Allan Poe

"...the man and the peaked cap he is said to have worn
quite tallies with the descriptions I got of him."
-Frederick G. Abberline

Comment

That is a very interesting case indeed, Rocky, and one that I had not been familiar with until now. So thanks for pointing me to it! However, even though the Mad Butcher did go from killing in some private place to killing outdoors, there are important differences between him and Torso man/the Ripper. The Mad Butcher cases are more clearly linked and where he killed outdoors doesn’t seem to have been as highly risky as the densely populated East End, where there was always someone closeby.
It appears I haven’t expressed myself clear enough. The important MO variation between Torso man and the Ripper only has to do with the fact that Torso man did his work in some private place, where he had all the time to do as he pleased (at low risk), while the Ripper did his work out in the streets, where anybody, including the ever present beat PC’s could have walked into him at any given moment (thus, at very high risk) and where he couldn’t count on doing all that he wanted.

All the best,
Frank

Frank, the Kelly murder was done indoors. Its been suggested the Jackson murder was done around the bankment

Comment

And if a killer did, then there were plenty of other places in London apart from Battersea Bridge and Spitalfields in which to ply their trade. Why just those two areas, if not because the perpetrators (plural) lived immediately in or around them?

It is highly likely that whoever did most of (but not all) the torso murders assuredly lived in/near Battersea, and whoever did the Ripper murders lived in or around Spitalfields. Both operated on foot.

Comment

And if a killer did, then there were plenty of other places in London apart from Battersea Bridge and Spitalfields in which to ply their trade. Why just those two areas, if not because the perpetrators (plural) lived immediately in or around them?

It is highly likely that whoever did most of (but not all) the torso murders assuredly lived in/near Battersea, and whoever did the Ripper murders lived in or around Spitalfields. Both operated on foot.

Once more, you do not know that the torso killer utilized the Battersea area only. You need to accept that this killer used a bunch of dumping places and that he could have procured his victims in any area of London, east or west or anything else.

Writing that he "assuredly" lived in or near Battersea is making up facts. We really, really should not do that. St Pancras lock, Tottenham, Pinchin Street - what was your Battersea tenant doing there? Did he feel like a day out? And why did he have a place close to Pinchin Street where he kept that body, before dumping it?

As for the torso killer operating on foot, that speaks for itself - it is another "fact" made up out of thin air. Conveniently, if we could prove that both men DID operate on foot only, it would point away from a common originator. I suppose that is why you feel free to make these things up.
I am not saying that you are wrong on the matter. I am not disinclined to think that the torso killer did pick his victims up the same way the Ripper did, and that this was made on foot. And it may - MAY! - have happened in the East too.

But this is speculation only, nothing else. It does not allow me to say that this was what happened. You seem to think it will pass when you do it, though - but no such luck.

Comment

And if a killer did, then there were plenty of other places in London apart from Battersea Bridge and Spitalfields in which to ply their trade. Why just those two areas, if not because the perpetrators (plural) lived immediately in or around them?

It is highly likely that whoever did most of (but not all) the torso murders assuredly lived in/near Battersea, and whoever did the Ripper murders lived in or around Spitalfields. Both operated on foot.

Or, Or, now hear me out on this I know it sounds crazy but maybe the killer lived in one place and worked in another.

Comment

Or, Or, now hear me out on this I know it sounds crazy but maybe the killer lived in one place and worked in another.

You're right - it sounds crazy. Or, rather, it sounds like trying to make a theory fit, instead of looking at the more likely explanation that there was more than one killer at work, who lived - and/or worked - in different parts of London at rather different times.

Kind regards, Sam Flynn

"Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

Comment

You're right - it sounds crazy. Or, rather, it sounds like trying to make a theory fit, instead of looking at the more likely explanation that there was more than one killer at work, who lived - and/or worked - in different parts of London at rather different times.

Let me guess moved to Whitechapel in September 1889?

Comment

You're right - it sounds crazy. Or, rather, it sounds like trying to make a theory fit, instead of looking at the more likely explanation that there was more than one killer at work, who lived - and/or worked - in different parts of London at rather different times.